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Hmm. Of course, while I can't be certain, I believe that Rose did do steroids late in his career. He was a player who would seemingly do anything to break the all time hits record - a player who happened to have connections with steroid dealers. Steroids help muscles recover more quickly, which had to be tempting to a player in his 40s trying to play enough to amass all those hits. Frankly, I'd be surprised if he didn't at least try steroids at some point.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but the last few years of Rose's career, when he was pathetically hanging on to get the hits record, wasn't he living with some known steroid user(s) that were doubling as runners for his bets?

I think that's a pretty terrible argument. Perhaps PEDs affect the statistics and leads to hallowed records getting broken, but gambling affects the outcomes. I'd rather see a guy give it his all and put up some nice statistics with PEDs behind it than watching a game and doubting the validity of the competition. I've seen how the baseball leagues in Taiwan get completely destroyed to what is now essentially exhibition games because of gambling scandals, and I think gambling on games is much worse.

Didn't Aaron use greenies? He had quite a productive career in his late 30's and 40's as Rose did. Wonder how they managed without steroids. I read somewhere that natural levels of testosterone are down 25% from a generation ago, which explains in part declining fertility rates. It may be that 35 yo today has natural testosterone levels at what a 45 yo had in the 70's. Steroids may be needed to preserve the purity of stats since players in previous eras had more natural juice.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but the last few years of Rose's career, when he was pathetically hanging on to get the hits record, wasn't he living with some known steroid user(s) that were doubling as runners for his bets?

Yes, Tommy Gioiosa. It seems rather irresponsible for TFA not to mention that.

Maybe the key statistic on the Wagner card is that there are only ~100 of them. Anyway, I think it's clear that the reason for the card's value is a combination of scarcity and star power. There are lots of cards rarer than the Wagner, but none of them are worth what the Wagner is, because none of the players pictured on them are Honus Freaking Wagner.

1) No, PEDs, even if they work as unreasonably well as the puritans say (which they provably don't), are NOT worse than gambling. PEDs, at their fantasy best, help you help your team win ballgames. Gambling puts you in a position where a bookie may well ask you to do things to make your team LOSE games, and have you in a financial pickle if you try to refuse. That Rose does not understand this is one big reason why he should be kept out of organized baseball forever. He's had 30 years to come out of denial.

2) Paul Janzen, the guy who blew the whistle on Rose, was living in Rose's house in spring of 1987, and was a bodybuilder who supported himself at least partially by dealing illegal steroids, which he was also using. Given how few steroids were illegal at the time, that's an eye-opener.

3) EVERYONE used greenies or some other amphetamine in the 1950s and 1960s. I don't mean every ballplayer, I mean everyone. The entire Beat movement was heroin and amphetamine fueled. Hell, I used a dexedrine diet pill for years, until Richard Nixon made them illegal. Dexedrine diet pills are what Tracy Turnblatt's mother refers to in Hairspray. Everyone took them, unless they were just born thin. Without that speed, I might very well have never passed the timed run needed to get Physical Fitness merit badge, which you had to have to become an Eagle Scout. - Brock Hanke

Hell, from what I understand, he can drop practically any well-known player's stats off the top of his head. It'd be cool and even geekishly admirable if it weren't so pathological.

I remember reading somewhere (an Abstract?) that Rose was once asked what player hit the most fly balls per at bat in the National League, thought for a moment then correctly said "Gary Redus."

I have no sympathy for Rose and don't believe he ever deserves either reinstatement or enshrinement but I think he's a true baseball junkie. It really is the most heartbreaking aspect of his story. This guy should have been the best advertisement the game has to offer but he threw it away.

And the giant, still hot glazed donuts that they brought up from the basement bakery at the diner I worked at. The smell of those donuts overwhelmed any memory of the number of rodents that you could find in the basement.

As Pete Rose remains banned for betting on baseball during his years as a player and manager, the baseball legend believes those who take performance-enhancing drugs have sullied the game worse than he did.

Amphetamines are not PEDs. There is not the slightest bit of evidence that they improved performance. What they did was enable tired (or hungover) players to perform at something approximating their normal performance level. You know, like caffeine.

They did not allow mediocre players to start breaking records and making a travesty of the game.

While I strongly disagree with the use of PEDs, I can understand the argument for allowing them. I'm just glad that baseball players have woken up to the fact that they don't want to have to harm their bodies to compete on an equal basis with their peers. However, the argument equating PEDs with amphetamines is just silly. The only people who make it are those who are looking to find any reason they can to legalize the use of PEDs.

amphetamins are like "coffee" in the same way herion is like drinking a beer, in other words, not really anything like it at all. How do i know? i have had both coffee and amphetamines, their effects arent remotely similar, and if you dont understand how "restorive" ability in a pill form isnt actually enhancing ...if you wake up and due to ill health , over indulgunce or what have you and can only perform at 50% of your usual ability but maigically if you take a pill you get closer to 90% then your performance has been "enhanced" from what it would be naturally on that day to something artificially created. to say it isnt is to miss what "enhancing " actually means when it comes to sports performance. and amphetamines give you good powers of concentration, which by my reckoning is an enhancement.

“I had nothing to do with altering statistics of baseball, and these guys, that take PEDs—wouldn’t it be nice if you could ask Babe Ruth the same question, or Roger Maris the same question or Hank Aaron, who won’t talk about it. I’d like to hear what their response will be because those are the guys who lost their records because of supposedly steroids.”

I always love it when people talk about the unfair advantage steroids give when it comes to breaking records and then bring up players whose stats were created in a segregated league. As if that wasn't an unfair advantage compared to the guys who weren't allowed to compete at all...

I know I didn’t do anything to alter the statistics of baseball,” Rose said on “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN 98.7 FM. “As you know, baseball statistics are sacred.

Rose used his position as manager to insert himself into the lineup when he was a pathetic 40-something first baseman lucky to reach a .300 SLG so he could, you know, alter the statistics of baseball by passing Ty Cobb in career hits.

But other than that he didn't do anything, because (his) statistics are sacred.

Hell, I used a dexedrine diet pill for years, until Richard Nixon made them illegal. Dexedrine diet pills are what Tracy Turnblatt's mother refers to in Hairspray. Everyone took them, unless they were just born thin. Without that speed, I might very well have never passed the timed run needed to get Physical Fitness merit badge, which you had to have to become an Eagle Scout. - Brock Hanke

We're burying the lead here. Brock Hanke's Physical Fitness merit badge should be branded with an asterisk, and he should be publicly shunned.

"The caffeine is allowing a little bit more calcium to be released into that muscle. It would make that muscle contraction a little bit stronger, so you can actually either run at the same pace with less input, or run at a faster pace for the same input." -- Doctor Mark Tarnopolsky, McMaster University Medical Centre

(And there are other studies on the matter. Practically all top Australian athletes in a number of sports -- including cricket -- use caffeine and follow a best practices document provided by the Australian Institute of sport)

There are of course far more studies on amphetamines. Clear evidence that taking the right amphetamine in the right amount improves reaction time. That is at least as likely to help a hitter as adding upper body strength.

But with both caffeine and amphetamines more is not better. You have to take the right amount at the right time

Amphetamines are not PEDs. There is not the slightest bit of evidence that they improved performance. What they did was enable tired (or hungover) players to perform at something approximating their normal performance level. You know, like caffeine.

They did not allow mediocre players to start breaking records and making a travesty of the game.

So does that make McGwire's use of steroids ok then, if he was just using them to recover from injuries? He obviously had power to spare as a lean rookie, crushing the rookie homerun record in pitcher friendly park, so it's not like he needed them for power or was some mediocre player.

Also worth nothing the sacred records aren't for longest home run hit, but for most over the long grind of a season or long grind of a career, so superhuman recovery from fatigue would certainly play a big role in that, and not coincidentally those records were largely set when amps were popular (or by Ruth would use pretty much anything and everything given the chance).

“It’s going to be interesting to see how Alex handles the offseason. I don’t want to hear he’s going to play for the (Long Island) Ducks or some independent league team. He doesn’t need to do any of that kind of stuff because then you’re creating a circus type of atmosphere.”

Amphetamines are not PEDs. There is not the slightest bit of evidence that they improved performance. What they did was enable tired (or hungover) players to perform at something approximating their normal performance level. You know, like caffeine.

But with both caffeine and amphetamines more is not better. You have to take the right amount at the right time

For that matter, I have a hard time believing that cocaine is not performance enhancing in the right doses. In the areas where it is grown, people chew the leaves of the coca plant for energy and to reduce fatigue.

At ages 40-41, when he wasn't manager, Rose was still posting a 102 OPS+. You can find 1B doing that every year.

At the age of 42, not a manager, he absolutely stunk. That is on Pat Corrales and Paul Owens and the Phils' front office.

At the age of 43, not the manager in Montreal, he was bad. That was the fault of Bill Virdon and the Expos' front office.

At the age of 43, now the manager in Cincy, he gave himself 23 starts in 41 games, putting up a 147 OPS+. 365/430/458 will always play.

At the age of 44, he gave himself 110 starts and put up an OPS+ of 99 with a 395 OBP. Not great but above replacement and you can find somebody like that all the time. By WAR he was the #13 1B in the NL that year (#11 by oWAR), better than Dan Driessen in slightly fewer PA, nearly as good as Jason Thompson in slightly more PA. Platooning with the 43-year-old Perez, they combined for 2.3 WAR in 700 PA -- league average due to Perez.

At the age of 45 he stunk but he already had the hits record so that wasn't his motivation for the 61 starts.

That age 44 season does indeed tell you just about everything you need to know about Rose as a player but not in the way most of you seem to think. In that season, "obsessed" with the hits record he hit a measly 264 as part of that 395 OBP. A man supposedly desperate beyond belief for a base hit walked 17% of the time. That was a career high. He was 4th in the league in walks, 4th in OBP.

I loathed Rose as a player and he's done nothing to make me stop. And yes he was an obsessed SOB. But his obsession was with getting on base and doing anything else he knew how to do to beat you. As much as he wanted that hit record he still couldn't bring himself to swing at crap.

From the ages of 41-44, Rickey hit 228/364/330 with an OPS+ of 86. During this stretch he broke the career records for runs and walks (at the time) and got his 3000th hit. From 41-44, Rose hit 266/352/320 with an OPS+ of 89 and set the all-time hits record. Rose did get 900 more PA than Henderson over this stretch but only 600 of those were his own doing.

From 41-44, Vizquel hit 255/311/311, 66 with 0 WAR and came back for age 45. I'm not sure when he set the games at SS record. From 41-43, Nettles hit 208/289/351, 75 for negative WAR. From 41-43, Winfield hit 255/319/418, 94 for negative WAR -- he passed 300 hits and 450 HR at 41, maybe he was "obsessed" with 500?

Rose appears little/no different than any other great player coming to the end of his career and Rose the manager doesn't appear greatly different than any of Rose's other managers or Winfield's managers except that, true, most other managers probably wouldn't give Rose 500 PA at 44, 395 OBP or not.

you overlooked how stacked the reds were with talent during this time period.

the reds had guys like gary redus and eric davis on the 1985 reds. everyone AROUND the team was asking why esasky wasn't at first base.

well, everyone not affiliated with the reds or cincy papers that is.

rose gets a pass from everyone on 1985 because the reds won 89 games with sh8t for infield and a bullpen fueled staff

1986 it was legitimately ridiculous as pitchers stopped letting rose work the count and just challenged him outright causing his walk rate to crater. yet dave parker continued to lumber around in right field with bad knees while guys like kal daniels and his 148 ops plus picked bench splinters out of his 8ss. and for those too young to remember kal daniels could HIT. the guy had knees made of paper mache but for a few years that guy was a line drive machine.

I have brought this up before when this topic has been broached so I can recite this stuff by heart. and this was certainly discussed at the time. again, those reds teams were competitive and rose looked to be doing a good job as manager so not playing the kids more never got much grief locally. but from a distance it sure caused one to wonder about priorities

El Hombre of Anaheim (comment #37) understands why I include the info about my Eagle Scout experience. I am as guilty as any MLB player who ever took greenies to enhance performance. The short story is that I have medically bad feet (two separate conditions). As a consequence, I run slower than anyone my size and build who isn't outright disabled. To make Eagle Scout, you had to have Physical Fitness, no substitutes allowed. To get Physical Fitness, you had to pass a timed mile run, no substitutes allowed. Worse, every six months older you got, the time you had for that mile decreased by, I think, half a minute, maybe a quarter. I had no chance of doing this until I was 14 and grew 7 inches without gaining any weight. So my dad started training me, running me up and down our block, following in the car in low gear. I was down to about 8 minutes 30 seconds, needing to get down to 8 minutes, but it was getting real close to my turning 15, and I would have had no chance at the 7 minutes 30 seconds that I would have needed then. My mom was, at the time, taking 300 mg time-released dexedrine, for weight control. She was actually splitting the pills, so taking only 150 mg a day. So she gave me one, before one of my and dad's timed trials on the sidewalk. It shaved 20 seconds off my time, getting me down to 8 minutes 10 seconds. I trained REAL hard for two weeks, and then, with a week or two left of my being 14, we got an examiner and went to the track at my school, while I took a WHOLE 300-mg dexedrine. On the nice flat cinder track, as opposed to a street sidewalk, I made the mile in 7 minutes 54 seconds, and fell over the finish line puking. I've never run so fast again. But there is NO doubt that the dexedrine enabled that. None. It was worth 20 seconds. There is no doubt that greenies increase your running speed, at least, not in my mind. But they won't turn you from a 40+ homer guy into a 70-homer guy. The effect is there, but it's not that big. It's 20 seconds in 8 minutes, which isn't 7/4.

It's also true that I started taking mom's half doses right after that experience. She was getting a prescription for 30 a month, but by dividing them, was refilling it only once every two months. She started refilling every month, and letting me have half. I remained at 5' 7" and 165-170 pounds until dexedrine became illegal. I gained 40 pounds in about 6 weeks without it, eventually getting out of the Vietnam draft for being too fat. Time-released dexedrine gives you 8 hours of boundless energy and no appetite. Amphetamines that are NOT time-released give you only 4 hours, make you jittery, keep you from sleeping, and get addictive real fast. Dosage control seems to mean a lot whatever the drug is. I am no supporter of speed freaks. I met too many when I was a hippie.

But, if you want to keep ballplayers out of the HoF for PEDs, then you have to want me to give my Eagle Scout back. I haven't done that. I guess that means I don't think greenies or steroids are that big a moral deal. - Brock

I say that we let Brock keep his Eagle Scout rank, since the Physical Fitness Merit Badge has been replaced with something called "Personal Fitness" and the latter does not actually require one to demonstrate anything remotely resembling actual physical fitness. The requirement that he was only able to fulfill with the aid of his mother's little helper has been reduced to "a. Run/walk as far as you can as fast as you can in nine minutes OR b. Run/walk one mile as fast as you can."

If it makes you feel better, go out and take a nine-minute walk tomorrow and we'll call it even.

Heh. Yeah, I know that the Personal Fitness merit badge isn't as hardcore as Physical Fitness was, and I also know that guys like me, who are not disabled, but who have medical conditions that keep them from passing one or maybe two of the hardcore requirements no matter how hard they train, are a lot of the reason. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. One point I was trying to make is that pretty much everyone will use a drug of some sort at some point, to help their physical condition in some way. To single out ballplayers for this, and then to savagely penalize them is not only draconic, but hypocritical. The other point I was trying to make is that the steroid puritans magnify the effects of steroids by at least an order of magnitude, maybe more. Steroids could not have turned Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds from 40+ homer hitters to 70-homer guys, because if steroids did that, no one would be able to get into MLB without them. That size of an advantage would mean that you can't even make the last spot of a MLB bench without them. And I would have run that mile in 5 minutes if I'd had access to steroids. Demonstrating this to steroid puritans is what reduces them to moral arguments, and to silly statements like "amphetmines do not increase performance; only steroids do." I strongly object to people using morals as a battleaxe, and I also strongly oppose people trying to make their moral point by inflating the effects of whatever it is they oppose by huge multiples. So I tend to rant some about steroid puritans in baseball. Can't help it, any more than I can help running slow. I also object to people trying to tar and feather Michael Sam, a Mizzouri football star who is going to the NFL, because he outed himself as gay. Whose business is that, other than his, anyway? I've been reading articles suggesting that his draft position may drop several ROUNDS because of this. Why? Hell, if that is the state of the art in football drafting, I want a NFL GM job. I can do better than THAT. - Brock

That age 44 season does indeed tell you just about everything you need to know about Rose as a player but not in the way most of you seem to think. In that season, "obsessed" with the hits record he hit a measly 264 as part of that 395 OBP. A man supposedly desperate beyond belief for a base hit walked 17% of the time. That was a career high. He was 4th in the league in walks, 4th in OBP.

I loathed Rose as a player and he's done nothing to make me stop. And yes he was an obsessed SOB. But his obsession was with getting on base and doing anything else he knew how to do to beat you. As much as he wanted that hit record he still couldn't bring himself to swing at crap.

Hey I was around back then, Rose's OBP/BB spike had nothing to do with trying to get on base to help his team- it was Rose doing anything he could to maximize his chances of getting a base hit by not swinging at crap.

Jim Bouton made the same argument at the SABR conference in Seattle a few years back. I actually laughed out loud at first thinking he was being ironic but then realized that he was actually trying to distinguish between "performance enablers" and "performance enhancers."